hey tim, maybe you remember me from the early days of cypherpunks@toad.com. just wanted to butt in here and reply to your post which i saw forwarded to some other list... it beats me why americans and the western media generally likes to get worried about the "most dangerous spot in the world" and "next nuclear warzone" that is south asia, given that everyone in india and pakistan knows neither country will use any nuclear weapons. the border population density is too great in both countries and population centres close enough that any major attack by one country on the other will have a direct fallout on both (taking delivery range into account). besides, neither govt is or has been remotely close to dreaming of nuclear attacks, though pakistan occasionally talks about them in the hope of getting america worried enough to get involved in the dispute over kashmir. indians and pakistanis don't worry about nuclear war because we know that the nuclear tests were for attention - india has had the Bomb since 1974, and pakistan has been known to have it for a decade. india carried out the tests because it felt the us was ignoring india (media coverage of "asia" typically limited itself to east asia) and wanted more attention. obviously pakistan had to show that it was as good as its neighbour. that's it. india's govt has been quietly (and cynically) satisfied at these events, because now, as some people have said, "the US finally wants to do something about the terrorists and training camps India's been complaining about for years." india won't get involved in pakistan's troubles. rather, it hopes the US will somehow manage to shut down the training camps and networks which harbour groups that attack india... and if that puts pakistan's govt in a tight situation, well that's just a nice little bonus isn't it. -rishab

From: Tim May <tcmay@got.net> To: cypherpunks@lne.com Subject: Re: Avoid hard targets tomorrow If the growing street protests/riots in Pakistan (Pesawar, Karachi, Islamabad) trend toward a new ultra-Islamic, pro-Taliban government, I expect India to strike first. India cannot allow a nuclear state on its border with Taliban leanings. India will knock out Pakistan's nuclear capabilities if it can. A nuclear war between India and Pakistan will utterly dwarf recent events, will crash the Dow to 1000, and will have other profound consequences.